The blasphemy of pay-as-you-pray
by Harry Blanchard, TCW:
A SACRILEGIOUS decision by the National Cathedral of the Episcopal Church (the even woker, if t’were possible, estranged American child of the C of E) in Washington to charge $7 per person for attendance at their Christmas Eve Eucharist has provoked a rightful furore in Christian circles.
Payment for church services or to obtain ecclesiastical office is the sin of Simony (see Acts 8:9-23), in which the Grace of God is blasphemously treated as a commercial asset. To many, this criticism might seem unnecessary. Despite the Episcopal Church’s plunging overall attendance rates, the Cathedral Church of Sts Peter and Paul (or the ‘National Cathedral’) is the closest thing America has to Westminster Abbey or St Paul’s. The United States has a secular constitution, but the cathedral is the de facto presidential church, by tradition ‘anointing’ presidents the day after their swearing-in.
Given the throng who will surely crowd the nave for an annual expression of piety, minimising numbers via a token fee can appear to be a pragmatic necessity. The argument could equally be made that seven dollars (approximately £5.52) is hardly an unaffordable sum for even the most cash-strapped festive Star-Spangler.
But affordability is not the point! The point is that Jesus calls everyone, especially the homeless and the hedge-dwellers (cf Luke 14:23) to come to His Heavenly banquet. Along with Baptism, Holy Communion is one of the primary Sacraments of the Christian faith without which we can ‘have no life in [us]’ (John 6:53).
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